The loud, rhythmic sounds of people chanting and drumming and the sight of hundreds of others dressed in multi-colored batik sarongs and swirling skirts are overwhelming.

Sensory overload sets in from the bright sunshine, suffocating heat and humidity, and sweet perfumed smell of flowers and incense wafting across the potholed, asphalt road.

Standing on the brown dirt path at the roadside, I’m stunned and bewildered as I look out at this melee of activity. Feeling self-conscious about intruding on such a personal scene I look around to see only a handful of other tourists hovering on the periphery.

The intricately painted funeral tower is decorated with numerous colored masks.

A short old man, wizened by the sun, smiles and beckons me into a nearby open hut. He places a folded brown-colored cotton band around my head and a bright red and green batik sari around my waist.

He says, “Welcome to our cremation ceremony,” then leads me back out into the sweaty throng of Balinese villagers who are preparing for the procession.

A body wrapped in a white shroud is brought out of the wooden slatted village leader’s house, carried shoulder high along a dirt pathway and placed in a black coffin. White flower petals thrown by mourners descend on the coffin as it is borne to a 30-foot-high (9.1 meters) pagoda-like tower standing nearby on the road.

Passed carefully from hand to hand, the coffin is lifted up the tower by young men of the village. The coffin ascends the tower in stages, as some of the wiry and muscular men climb past it to the next level to receive it again. Eventually it is placed into a dark recess halfway up the glittering red and gold decorated tower.

The mourning family looks solemn, but members occasionally smile and wave to their friends. It’s not the typical weeping, grief-stricken scene experienced at a western funeral. The family walks in front of the tower as it’s slowly pushed and pulled along the hot dusty road by over a dozen strong young men. We head through the small ramshackle village, down the slight grade toward the cremation grounds a half-mile away.

Resting on four enormous black rubber tires, each the size of a man, the tower is so tall it was necessary to remove the overhead power lines. Hundreds of people follow, some silent, some talking and some singing. I join the throng, slowly walking with the crowd.

Balinese Hindu cremation ceremonies are among the most renowned cultural activities in the world for adhering to their ancient roots, dating back over a thousand years. The notable exception that has broken with ancient tradition:  wives of the deceased no longer throw themselves onto the blazing funeral pyres as their dead husbands are cremated.